But Dobbs gives only one example -- the Mormons "helping a pro-amnesty incumbent with a get out the vote campaign," where a church is accused of supporting a particular candidate. His argument is much broader: No religious organization, apparently, should participate in any activity within what he has deemed as a "political" sphere. He mentions that the IRS has dozens of investigations underway, and snarks that, "apparently nobody in the federal government is too concerned that the Catholic Church has repeatedly lobbied on behalf of millions of illegal aliens and their supporters for wholesale amnesty and open borders." And he says it's "time for all of us to examine closely, both in our communities and in our Congress, just what separation of church and state really means to us and to the nation."
Okay, I've examined it. How about this, Lou? Keep your politics off my immigration issues. Maybe the reason "nobody in the federal government is too concerned" here is because you're wrong.
This is my religion: "for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me…. Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of my people, you did it to me." Jesus Christ. Immigration isn't just a footnote to Christianity; it is one of its core themes and defining values. What kind of government would deny me my right to study this in a Bible group, announce it to my fellow parishioners, and minister to immigrant peoples? On what theory does my personal religious practice become a government "establishment" of religion to the extent that my own right to free exercise -- in fact to free speech, to free assembly, to free press -- can be abridged?
I'd say "we were here first" -- that immigration has been a religious issue far longer than it's been a political one -- but that buys into Dobbs' polarization of "Church" and "State" as two institutional spheres that should never influence each other. But "religion" isn't simply an institution. Religion is a paradigm; a set of values; a defining premise that guides the lives of individual men and women of faith. Whether these people meet in a church or synagogue, worship their God by name, or pray together or separately -- their faith is an innermost, private process of the human heart. Likewise, "politics" isn't a disembodied activity that occurs only in campaigning, in voting, in the activities of our legislature and judiciary. "Politics" are the very processes by which we argue, buy, discuss, read and spend according to what is most important to us. Political process and religion perspective are each part of all of us. How can one be ever kept wholly distinct from the other?
Yes, I hold the establishment clause as dearly as I hold my right to free exercise. But telling my parish to stay silent in the face of massive social oppression, as if we must shut up and stick to singing Kumbaya on Sundays, is unconscionable. If immigration is political, it's because of the way our government uses its economic and military power to control its borders and deny its privileges of citizenship to outsiders. This threatens the life and safety of the thousands of men, women and children who their lives for a chance to come join (and be exploited by) our society. This is a tragedy and an epidemic. And if my heart and soul tell me not to look away -- to help, to reform, to fight the tragedy -- does it matter that this particular heart is informed by a particular faith? It cannot.
Give me your tired, your poor
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore
Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Inscription on the Statue of Liberty
7 comments:
Poor Lou Dobbs is a bit OCD on the immigration issue. Or, rather, very OCD. A one-trick pony. And a boring one at that.
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Dierk, good point. Dobbs is really using Church and State as a straw man, isn't he. He's snarkily trying to appeal to liberal/secular interests by painting immigration as an issue of religion-bullying. Still I think it's important to engage the whole issue of religion and "entanglement," the "politics from the pulpit" concern. Maybe the pulpit just isn't what it used to be -- in the 18th century everyone went to Church and got their moral instruction there. These days, a church is more of a private, elective gathering of people of faith. I don't think the pulpit is as public as it used to be.
B Smithey, congratulations for figuring out the word verification screening mechanism. I will not delete you because then Pat will speculate on who I'm censoring. And because getting spam here lets me pretend that more people read this.
Where I bite the "liberal" bullet.
I have yet to sit down and hash this point over with your "average liberal" - who takes such offense at churches involved in anyway with social issues. I suppose there's always the blog format, but I'd really like to get at the meat of their objection.
I'm in favor of the separation of Church and State, as defined in our laws. I don't believe churches with tax exhempt status should champion a political candidate. But the conversation does go further, and the next thing you know, they're saying should never anything against a particular socio-political issue (and especially one they happen to support).
The irony that so often we hear complaints that Pope Pius XII didn't do or say enough against the Nazis. It all gets very complicated.
Look, we all vote and campaign on issues that reflect our values. Our values are formed by our cultural context and life experience. Religious people have a religious cultural context. And atheists have another kind of cultural context. But the point is, each individual must form their personal values around some context. It's not right that my values, shaped by religious ethics, should be discounted in the political process, while another's values, shaped by ethics of another genre (and equally as unproveable), are allowed and encouraged.
This would all sound better over my second beer. I hate writing in this tiny box, but I hope that makes some sense.
Yes. And I would add, we all have a responsiblity to actively pursue and engage political remedies when we see that something is wrong. Not just to vote, but to participate in the civic discourse and raise awareness. When is this "campaigning?" When does our passion become a "policy" argument?
It's a fallacy to imagine that there is some sanitized "public sphere" of civic and political discourse, and that this is the only sphere in which certain policy decisions should be made. And then who gets to set the boundaries (of what is "political" -- ie, immigration, education, healthcare?)
But I don't know. We'll have to find a secular, liberal person to hash this through with, so we're not just imagining what their position is. Maybe we should find one, and offer them some beer.
I agree with B. Smithey.
Do you believe B.Smithey's miracle skin care cream is the same stuff that revives dull, lusterless headlight lenses? Because I do. But I can't prove it from within my own cultural context.
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